Case study- Levi Strauss at Home and abroad.

1.How, if at all, is your assessment of Levi Strauss’s responsibilities affected by the fact that the company bought the plant and then closed it nine years later?

2.Should consumers avoid products that are made by sweatshops? Should they shun companies that lay workers off needlessly? Are consumer boycotts ever justified? When are such boycotts likely to be effective? Under what circumstances would you participate in a consumer boycott?

3.How would you feel if you had been an employee at the plant? Bob Dunn said, “ My hope is that as time passes and people have a chance to reflect on what we’ve done,(people who have lost jobs) will judge us to have been responsible and fair”. Do you think Levi Strauss’s former employees will judge the company that way?

4.With regard to Levi Strauss’s conduct both at home and abroad, does it make sense to talk about the company as a morally responsible agent whose actions can be critically assessed, or can we assess only the actions and decisions of individual human beings inside the company?

5.Do corporations have a responsibility to monitor the conduct of the companies they do business with – in particular, their contractors and suppliers? Do they have a responsibility to avoid doing business in countries that are undemocratic, violate human rights, or permit exploitative work conditions? Compare and critically assess the conduct of Levi Strauss and Nike in this respect.

6.Should Levi Strauss have resumed its manufacturing operations in China should it have pulled out in the first place?

7.Is Levi Strauss sincere in its professed concerns for foreign workers? Is Nike?

8.American consumers say that they don’t like having their clothes made by exploited workers in foreign sweatshops. Is consumer pressure sufficient to get American companies to improve the pay and working conditions of foreign factory workers?

9. Some pessimists say that because most companies don’t make social welfare a priority, competition will ultimately undermine the efforts of companies like Levi Strauss to establish standards. Assess this argument.

Case 5.4 : Free Speech or False Advertising?

1. In this case, was Nike engaged in commercial speech, or were its statements political or social speech? What determines whether speech is commercial or not?

2.Was the out-of-court settlement a reasonable resolution of this case? What would have been the good or bad consequences of the Supreme Court’s deciding in Nikes favor? Of its deciding in Kasky’s favor?

3.Should commercial speech receive less First Amendment protection than other types of speech, or does this violate the rights of corporations? Explain your answer.

4.Do corporations have the same moral rights as individual human beings? Should they have the same political rights? Is it morally permissible to limit the speech of corporations in ways that would be wrong if applied to the speech of individual citizens? If it is permissible, is it good public policy?

5.Does Nike have a social responsibility to address matters of public concern such as the working conditions in its overseas operations? If it chooses to do so, does it have an obligation to make its statements as truthful and accurate as it can? Under what circumstances should corporations be held liable for the truth of their public statements?